Nightfall
by GeishaGirl93
Summary: They have this one night. Belle/Esmeralda


Disclaimer: I don't own Hunchback of Notre Dame or Beauty and the Beast.  
A/N: A Quasimodo/Phoebus fic could be next; I'm in Disney mood.

Title: Nightfall  
Summary: They have this night.  
Pairing(s): Belle/Esmeralda  
Warning(s): femslash, PWP

Xxxx

Esmeralda comes to Belle's house when Belle's father is in the throes of a deep sleep. Belle waits by the door, dressed in a thin, almost ridiculously girlie number with lace sleeves, lace on the hem and faux pearl buttons running up the center. She shivers despite the fact that the home is warm from the hearth. Her hair is down and she absently toys with a frayed end. She should really take better care of her hair (Esmeralda love sit when her hair is down), but she can't bring herself to become superfluous. She sees the girls with their pale faces, immaculate hair and their almost doll-like frailty, and she can't bring herself to go in for a trim. She grows frustrated with them and their tender beauty and their comments and whispers behind their small hands, but she won't allow herself to become bothered by their pettiness, by their lack of understanding.

_That's the problem with this town. _Belle thinks as she moves through the house, running her hand over every piece of furniture, traces a path from the living area to the door and then back again. _They just don't understand; they don't understand at all._

But Esmeralda understands. She understands because she, too, is different and ostracized and yet somehow still finds the beauty in life and in Paris. She's suffered and survived; she's everything that Belle wants to be, idolizes and loves. Yes, _loves_. Maybe it's doomed to fail, maybe it will never work because despite their alienation, they are still just _too different _for the world to readily accept, but Belle doesn't care because for a few precious moments, Esmeralda is hers and hers alone. They share secrets and breath and touches and heartache; they take their hurt and pain and give it to the other to hold, to cradle and kiss anew like a mother healing the skinned knee of her child with a delicate kiss. They are a secret to one another that not even the world knows, and there's something provocative and sacred about that knowledge.

Belle is on her third rotation when a noise startles her. It's not quite a knock, more like the brief contact of something light colliding with something solid. There's a few beats, and then it happens again. To those unfamiliar, it sounds as if there's an animal coming to the door or a bird trying to make its home in the stone structure of the house. However, Belle knows the noise, and she almost wants to cry but refuse because she told herself that under _no circumstances_ will she cry tonight.

Belle absently runs her hands through her hair, straightens her gown and goes to the door. When she opens it, she's greeted by a familiar smile and familiar eyes and a familiar kiss. She wraps her arms around the lithe frame of her companion and allows herself to mold into the woman's shape. She fills all the empty spaces of Esmeralda's body, and Esmeralda relishes in the feeling of completion with each tender touch to her hair, her back, her clothed breasts, over the swell of her buttocks. She sighs into Belle's mouth and tastes the spices of her dinner, the dewiness of a rose in early morning, the sweetness of promises and the thrill of an adventure. She kicks the door shut with enough force to ensure its closure but soft enough so that it does not rouse Belle's father. Her cloak suddenly feels top heavy despite its lightness, and Belle removes it with precise fingers. She tangles her fingers in Belle's hair; it's soft like silk, like satin.

"I've missed you." Esmeralda says against Belle's cheek, and Belle kisses her neck with moist, hot lips.

"I've missed you, too. How are you? Did they hurt you?"

Esmeralda shakes her head and laves at Belle's fluttering pulse, gingerly bites at it. Belle shudders in her arms and gently nips at her ear.

"I'm fine," Esmeralda says and she's breathless and hot and aroused. "God, Belle—"

"Shh," Belle softly shushes her and finds enough strength to pull away and begin the ascension to her bedroom no the second floor, "let's not waste any more time. Let's just take the moment we have."

Esmeralda follows as if pulled by a hook.

Upstairs, Belle's room is washed in moonlight and shrouded in soft shadow. The room reflects Belle in its neatness and preciseness. Her bed has been unmade, the covers folded and resting in a chair in a corner. Belle sits on the edge of the bed and slowly unbuttons the gown; it parts like a sheer curtain to reveal the small mounds of her breasts topped with pale pink nipples that have pebbled from the cold, the milky expanse of her belly, the dark, downy trail of hair that leads from her navel to her unshaven womanhood. Esmeralda finds herself spellbound; Belle is beautiful in her plainness, in her lack of effort of trying to be beautiful. The nightgown puddles around her like the veil of new bride.

"Oh, Belle," Esmeralda breathes, and she removes her clothes with a practiced flourish. First the ribbon that holds her hair back, then the top and then the skirt. She's always felt free in her skin, and Belle stares with an open mouth that's a soft shade of pink in the white light.

Esmeralda is the kind of beauty Belle has only read about in her books: exotic, skin the color of the earth after a much-needed rain, hair the shade of the blackest ink on a crisp sheet of paper, eyes soft yet sharp and a brilliant green that makes Belle think of summer grass on the hills, body perfectly shaped and curved with dark nipples on her full breasts and dark hair between her legs. Belle can smell her on the light wind that leaks through the cracked window—spicy and somehow earthy at the same time; she's lightning on a dry wind, the incense that comes from a candle.

Esmeralda comes to drape over Belle like a warm blanket and kisses her breasts with reverence. Belle whimpers and convulses on aborted moans, loses herself in the feel of Esmeralda's hands on her hips, the tender stroking over delicate thumbs over the jutting bone, the electric feeling that fissures of her skin as her mouth moves from one nipple to the next, taking them into a warm, wet vacuum and working them to hardness with her tongue. As Esmeralda begins to move lower, she brings up her hands to cup Belle's breasts and gingerly work the sensitive nubs between her thumbs and forefingers. She leaves a trail of open-mouthed kisses down the center of Belle's belly, pausing to nibble and suck at her navel. She then continues to go lower and lower, her mouth working over the beginning of hair at Belle's groin and nuzzles at the tight curls. Her knees come into rest on the floor her hands come to rest on Belle's thighs and keep her legs apart. Belle makes an embaressed noise, and Esmeralda looks up to see a red flesh unfurling beneath her breasts and spreading across their surfaces. Esmeralda can't stop the smile that spreads across her face as she gingerly kisses and sucks at the juncture between Belle's thighs and mound.

"Please," Belle's voice is barely a whisper, "_please_."

Esmeralda briefly swipes her tongue over Belle's sensitive clitoris before she starts from the base of Belle's wet lips and begins a long lick up and then enclosing her lips over the wet bud. Belle convulses and shudders, her hands coming to rest in Esmeralda's hair and twinning the strands around her fingers. Esmeralda knows the pace she must go and goes into a steady rhythm. She sucks for three beats and then flicks at the sensitive bud with her tongue. Belle gasps and writhes, moves her hips in fluid motions.

Sometimes, these nights will call for something else, something that usually involves fingers or tongue, but tonight Belle is already wet and _close_, hungry for the touch she's been starved of for weeks. She whines and moans, thrashes her head and speaks in incoherent babbling. It feels good, impossibly good, _inhumanely_ good. She feels her orgasm coming like a breeching wave, and when it crashes over her, her back arches into a perfect bow, Esmeralda's name leaving her lips like a sacred prayer. Her bones and veins are flooded with pleasure, and Esmeralda holds her steady with her delicate yet slightly calloused hands and uses her lips to make sure her orgasm is lived to the fullest. When Belle collapses back onto the bed, a warmth spreads through her limbs, and she feels sated.

Belle props herself up on trembling arms and says in a distant voice, "Come here."

Esmeralda rises and Belle can see the wetness on her lips. When Esmeralda kisses her, she can taste her own essence, and it makes her moan. She bends her knee so that Esmeralda can straddle her thigh and gasps at the wetness she feels when Esmeralda proceeds to move her hips. Esmeralda moans, head thrown back, eyes closed, lips bruised and swollen. In this moment, she is tragically beautiful, and Belle loves her so much that her heart aches. She is the story Belle never wants to end; she's the heroine Belle wants to win and be with forever and ever; she is everything Belle—everything that is good and precious and full of life. Esmeralda moves faster and faster until her arms lock up and her orgasm fissures up and down her spine, and Belle's name bursts from her lips riding on a moan. Esmeralda collapses on top of her, and her breath is hot and her chest heaves.

_This is perfect. _Belle thinks. _This is perfect._

Esmeralda gingerly strokes her hair and kisses her cheek and neck, murmurs words that Belle can't understand but her tone carries nothing but affection and love and wonder and longing.

"I am nothing special," Belle means it for herself, but Esmeralda lifts her head and stares down at her with an intense gaze. "I am just me."

Esmeralda captures her lips in a delicate, slow kiss. When she pulls away, she smiles and says, "You are wonderful just being you, my rose."

Tears burn Belle's eyes, and the words she longs to say cling to her throat and try and fight her way out, but she manages to swallow them down and hold Esmeralda close. Maybe, one day, there will be a place where gypsies and women like can live without the stares and leers and whispers; one day, they will be able to hold hands and walk under the sun or along the beaches or through the town and not have to worry. One day, they will have a house all their own, and they'll live there and read and sell trinkets and read palms and cards and love each other without boundaries. One day, they'll be able to say _I love you _and there will be nothing but love in those words, nothing but the promise of a lifetime together and the moments beneath the sun.


End file.
